Should You Use Facebook Ads For B2B?

“Everybody” is on Facebook and Facebook Ads are cheaper than Google Ads. It’s a no brainer right? Well, not necessarily.

I’ve ran countless Facebook Ad Campaigns for multiple clients across multiple different B2B industries and while yes it’s true Facebook Ads is cheaper per click usually, it’s a lot more difficult to convert those clicks into actual sales. The truth is, Facebook Advertising brings in people that are higher up the marketing funnel, in the ‘awareness’ segment. They’re not very motivated to buy what you have to offer right now, because they may or may not be experiencing the problem your product fixes.

Somebody who finds you on Google via Google Ads is further near the “action” part of the funnel because they’re actively looking for a solution to a problem they’re experiencing right now, this very second! This typically results in a higher sales conversion rate, which is what matters ultimately.

If you have a limited ad budget, try out Google Ads first. For bigger brands with a bigger marketing budget, it might make sense to use Facebook Ads to build up the ‘awareness’ part of the sales funnel, but for smaller fish who need to see a high ROI with their advertising budget, I’d say skip Facebook Ads. Oh yea, and never run a ‘like’ campaign unless you like flushing your money down the toilet.

Some will recommend running a Facebook Retargeting Ad Campaign. While it’s true these type of ads can produce a high ROI, I’m not a fan of them personally.

Why?

I believe there’s plenty of profit to be made respecting my website visitor’s privacy and without ad trackers clogging up the internet making websites load slower. Not only that, but it would seem public perception of online privacy is changing. One could argue that respecting your website visitor’s privacy by removing any ad trackers on your site will just be seen as best practice for businesses that don’t want to experience any kind of public backlash against their brand.